I've been a loyal and long-standing PenFed customer for many years. This situation with the Visa card (multiple changes snuck through with little notice and no information given to the customer service agents) is horrible. I can only conclude they are trying to get rid of long-standing, loyal custom...

The additional piece of info I'd like to know is an estimate of how much in income (combined income for couples) plus gifts (inheritance) did the person have when they reached 500k in savings. Someone who had 500k at 30 but had earned and/or inherited $5 million by that time is not that impressive....

The additional piece of info I'd like to know is an estimate of how much in income (combined income for couples) plus gifts (inheritance) had the person earned over their lifetime when they reached 500k in savings. A couple who had reached 500k at 30 but had cumulatively earned and/or inherited $5 m...

In section 5A. Vanguard states it has 238 employees.....wow, that sounds low. I don't know what I was expecting, but it just "seems" low. 1210 I looked up the latest employee numbers for some Vanguard competitors: T Rowe Price: 5,372 Legg Mason: 2,975 AllianceBernstein:3,764 Franklin Resource:8,600...

I wanted to point out another way the Pentagon Federal Platinum Rewards Visa new rewards system (where you get a prepaid Visa with your reward monies) is worse than the old one (where you got immediate cash back). I bought some shoes with the prepaid Visa and later returned them. The refund didn't ...

This is really a mess. I just called to try and verify if they were changing me from 5/3/1 to 3/2/1 rewards. The customer service person looked up my account, said that I was changing, that I had been sent notification and that there was no way to opt out. When I asked her to verify when I had been ...

A lot of self checkouts Kroger and Home Depot to name two that work for me allow split tenders. I've paid for one transaction at a store with two Prepaid Visa cards and my regular credit card . The clerk didn't like it very much (and I didn't like it much either), but it allowed me to use up multip...

I typically use the reward card to buy an amazone gift card. That's a very good idea. Probably doesn't work for me though because I don't spend much on Amazon.com. Re: the new rebate via a Visa prepaid card. I also have to remind myself not to use the prepaid Visa for gas or at a grocery store beca...

I wanted to point out another way the Pentagon Federal Platinum Rewards Visa new rewards system (where you get a prepaid Visa with your reward monies) is worse than the old one (where you got immediate cash back). I bought some shoes with the prepaid Visa and later returned them. The refund didn't s...

Keep in mind that money in a TIAA Traditional RA account can only be transferred out over 10 years in 1/10th intervals, so if you transfer it all in now and rates rise it'll take you 10 years to transfer the money out. See part 8 here, https://www.tiaa-cref.org/public/products-services/retirement/su...

My mother lent her brother a lot of money about 15 years ago (was over 30k) for his business. I advised her to have an attorney prepare a formal promissory note and to try and become a beneficiary of his life insurance policy. She had a promissory note prepared (he never signed) and he never changed...

I found the process of rolling over from Fidelity to Vanguard much too slow. I have a 401k that I would also like to roll-over to consolidate, but I am hesitating due to the length of the delay. I did, as well, but that was because Fidelity sent the rollover check to me, instead of to Vanguard, as ...

I don't completely disagree with some of the article's points, but I feel like he cherry picked a lot of the numbers. For example, he only looked at private colleges, not public. And he only included private school debt numbers for students who borrowed money. Not everyone borrows. Per the College B...

RNJ - have you done an analysis to see if you generally pay a .5% premium when you buy the ETF?

As mentioned earlier, my hunch would be that you do. If that's the case then the only real differences for you would be a higher expense ratio for the mutual fund but more hassles buying/selling the ETF.

My understanding is that a lot of emerging market countries with good credit don't issue debt in USD. Ex. Singapore issues their debt in local currency (Singaporean dollars). Therefore, this fund will leave out a bunch of the better emerging market credits.

FICO scoring loves low utilization. I pay my CC's the day before the statement drops to minimize the reported balances. Let at least one card report a small balance though, as several scoring models mark you down for reported 0% utilization. Interesting. I've never heard of this strategy before. An...

Take a look at this data analytics job board -- http://www.icrunchdata.com/ The core skill sets are generally being very adept with statistical software and having good stat analysis skills. If that's the kind of thing that interests you, there are lots of opportunities, they pay well and there's ev...

From the IRS web page (bolded applicable part): http://www.irs.gov/Businesses/Small-Businesses-&-Self-Employed/Estimated-Taxes For estimated tax purposes, the year is divided into four payment periods. Each period has a specific payment due date. If you do not pay enough tax by the due date of each ...

Sources that use the Federal Reserve's Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF) tend to give a better picture because it tracks all types of retirement funds (401k, IRA, Roth IRA etc.). The problem for lay people (and journalists) who want to use SCF is that there's a lag (most current available is 2010) a...

The other well-traveled career option at HYP besides investment banking is to work in consulting. If she doesn't get an i-banking internship, why doesn't she look into that. Though I don't believe the Big Three: McKinsey, Bain and Boston Consulting - have very big internship programs. Also, it's ver...

Anyone tried filing an early (Jan. or Feb.) extension (Form 4868) along with a payment to "top up" their refund to $5,000? And then the plan would be to wait for the payment to be cashed and immediately file your tax return (i.e. well before April 15th). I might try that this year, unless someone ha...

Re: your girlfriend's subsidized loans I haven't looked at student loan rules in a long time, so the rules might have changed. Won't the US government pay the interest if you are in school more than 1/2 time? If that's still the case, I wouldn't rush to pay those off until after she graduates. One o...

Important information for current Cardholders
Bluebird is changing. As part of these improvements, we are ending the current bluebird program and closing all accounts from that program on December 8th, 2012.

DetroitRed Re your point--you don't need the data back then, just look at data as I showed over last 40-50 years. And look at international data for about last 20+ years. It's the same everywhere Larry Hi Larry, I'm still uncomfortable with drawing such strong conclusions where we only have 1 non-o...

I'm very uncomfortable with small cap return calculations that go back to the 1920s. We don't have complete data for small caps prior to July 1962 because the primary US stock return data source, CRSP, doesn't have American Stock Exchange (AMEX) coverage until 7/2/62. That means that an enormous num...

Warren Buffett says there are two rules of investing: 1) Never Lose Money 2) Never forget rule No. 1 I sure don't want to dispute Warren Buffett, but I do not understand the above. If I have $100,000.00 invested in the S & P 500 Index fund and the value goes down to $75,000.00, then in my opinion I...

Warren Buffett says there are two rules of investing: 1) Never Lose Money 2) Never forget rule No. 1 I sure don't want to dispute Warren Buffett, but I do not understand the above. If I have $100,000.00 invested in the S & P 500 Index fund and the value goes down to $75,000.00, then in my opinion I...

Regarding Korea, surely it would have been evicted from the existing index before too long. I haven't looked at all the changes, but it's possible that some VG funds will now need the Korean equities that the emerging markets fund won't, so I'm not sure the transaction costs would have that much of...

If it's all about costs like they say, then why doesn't Vanguard self index? They certainly have the brainpower to form their own indexes based on what they want. That way they don't have to keep changing every few years I'm not sure they're allowed to. BlackRock asked for SEC approval to use inter...

Hi, Has anyone run across a cheat sheet of the various AGI and MAGI levels that cause things to happen? Some examples - for a joint return, over $142700 bumps you up a tax bracket The $142,700 joint return "tax bracket" number is not AGI or MAGI. It's taxable income, which includes all deductions.

Similar to the comment about good pensions triggering higher taxable income, if you have very large 401(k) or traditional IRA balances, once you are required to do required minimum distributions (RMDs), you're going to have lots of taxable income. Does that mean you shouldn't try to accumulate large...

I'm fond of Charlie Munger's opinion on the relevance of 19th century stock return data. From an interview with Kiplinger's - http://mungerisms.blogspot.com/2009/09/munger-speaks-with-kiplingers-steven.html Q: [Kiplinger's] Ibbotson finds 10% average returns back to 1926, and Jeremy Siegel has found...

It's impossible. Been trying to deal with this sporadically for years. One problem is that many medical procedures, even "routine exams," are decision trees. The doctor decides what to do next depending on what has gone before. The surgeon doesn't wake you up in the middle of the operation to say "...

The Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF) would have this data - http://www.federalreserve.gov/econresdata/scf/scf_2010.htm . They ask total value of checking accounts held by household (variable name: CHECKING) and total value of savings accounts held by household (variable name: SAVING). Unfortunately...

Ugh, I just hope there isn't a return to writing checks. For the first time in years I got stuck in the grocery checkout line last weekend behind a lady who wrote a check, wanted cash back, showed her ID, then proceeded to enter the check in her register and calculate the balance. Took well over a ...

Check Appendix Table 1 (school average SAT score) at the end of the paper to see that several, but not all, ivy league schools were included in the comparison. Both authors were from Princeton as well. While some ivy league schools are in the data, I don't believe the study makes any ivy v non-ivy ...